


You're Never Alone with a Moon this Bright

by HelloAmHere



Series: The Woods are Lovely, Dark and Deep [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Christmas, Fluff and Angst, Full Shift Werewolves, Hurt/Comfort, I grew up in the woods so, I need to just admit I have a food-comfort-fic problem, M/M, Magical Realism, and also I miss nature, gratuitous cookie consumption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 13:11:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13147410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelloAmHere/pseuds/HelloAmHere
Summary: Louis was a monster. But sometimes, even monsters get a Christmas.





	You're Never Alone with a Moon this Bright

**Author's Note:**

> I had wicked insomnia last night, and as a consequence I wrote this in one big Christmas-fueled wolfy dump, so it might be completely ridiculous, but it's a present for you, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Louis was a lot of things.

Pretty ok at singing. A terrible cook. Good at reading books, not so good at getting them back to the library on time. Sometimes he thought he’d make a nice friend, if he ever had the opportunity to do it--he was funny, on occasion, at least he could make people laugh, and he liked listening to them. Sometimes there were these moments when a chance encounter would throw him together with people. Like the time an elevator stalled in a crowded department store in Philadelphia, and he’d told the kid a story to keep her calm while they waited in the dark and her mom had said “bless you.” Or the time he’d accidentally knocked elbows with a couple of rowdy frat boys outside of a baseball game and they’d been friendly and drunk and invited him to their seats because one of their group hadn’t shown up. There were these moments, being part of a group instead of shrinking away in the background, and Louis felt a settledness in his bones that he liked to think about later. Not just Louis Tomlinson, but Louis Tomlinson and the others, whoever they were. He didn’t really know. Sometimes it felt more like remembering, but it was dreaming. A fantasy.

Louis was a lot of things, but the main thing was, Louis was a monster.

 

*

 

The inn was perfect. That’s what the inn’s website had declared with links to photo galleries that Louis had thought were a little smug, forests and logs and healthy-looking boys doing vague farm work in the distance and captions about _getting away from the city,_ and all. That’s what the yelp reviews had said, a lot of lumberjack-type dudes that Louis distrusted on principle, but the words they used were space and quiet and solitude. That’s what the travel brochures had said in the train station, stuffed in a tiny ballot box and greeting Louis when he got off, the only one to get off, the only one in his train car, the only one in the station.

Louis couldn’t have gotten a plane into this town, even if he had wanted to, which he obviously hadn’t. He was used to trains. He’d watched the trees get taller outside the scratched train window and he’d made a stiff iced scone stretch across eight hours. A conductor hadn’t even come by to get his ticket. He still had it in his pocket, one-way to nowheresville, very north, further north than Louis had ever been. For all he knew, they’d just given the train a big push from the city and it had spit him up here alone, one last ghost passenger in an oversized American Eagle sweatshirt that said _Shine On_ in gold lettering.

The inn was perfect. Louis walked to it, grateful to only have the one bag, for once. The inn was miles from the train station which was miles from the town itself. It was early evening, the sky a kind of smoky-blue that Louis found himself staring into, forgetting to look where he was putting his feet. They found their way. They usually did. His breath misted out in a little cloud, but it wasn’t too cold. And even if it had been, Louis was running hot. He was only going to run hotter. He’d been surviving for a long time, and walking was only walking.

The inn was perfect. Louis was surprised when he got to it, his mind humming in an interested little scan through the dark, low hills around him. The air here felt different, not just that it was colder and full of pine, but there was something satisfyingly clear about it. Louis felt like he could smell for miles, could winnow out the traces of animal and plant and maybe even the contours of the land, just in the air, which was ridiculous. He was so captivated he forgot he actually had a destination in his wandering, this time. When he crested a hill and saw the inn for the first time, he gasped.

The inn was perfect. It was a classic, three-story farm shape that looked old, but loved. It had a wrap-around porch, wooden and solid and large. It sat in the far corner of a wide field, tucked in like a contented grandfather in a rocking chair. Behind it rose the massive treeline of the vast nature preserve, dark, tall, infinite. Nobody lived there. Besides the inn, nobody for miles.

The inn was perfect.

 

*

 

“Hello?”

Louis peered over the front desk, but no one was hiding under the oak panel, or the tiny black computer monitor that looked at least ten years old. There was a thick notebook with curled paper pages on the desk, and a couple of pens, and a fantasy novel. Louis rapped absently on the desk with his knuckle. There was a cup of tea by the computer monitor, so there had to be life somewhere. He stared at the novel, which was recognizable because it had the same cover as the one in his bag. The tea was peppermint, but not a particularly good kind, just mass-produced storebought. It had an entire spoonful of honey in, judging by the smell. Louis was wrinkling his nose in judgment when the boy came up behind him.

“‘Lo!” The boy shouted. Louis jumped a foot in the air, went into a crouch, and whirled.

“Sorry, sorry,” the boy said. He was tall and all limbs and terribly pretty. He looked sleepy but happy, half a smile in a long-sleeved waffle shirt that was unbuttoned down his collarbone. Louis straightened back up, gripped around the handle of his ratty bag.

“Hi,” he said. That was how you started conversations. “I’d like a room.”

“Oh no,” the boy sighed, standing there with his eyes and his collarbones, which Louis thought was unfair. “The rooms have already gone to sleep. Can’t possible wake them.”

Louis blinked. He felt sick to his stomach, suddenly and fiercely. He needed a room. He needed a bed. He knew he would hardly use it but he’d saved for a while, this month, to make sure he could have it, that he could crawl back to it and feel something like warmth, something with four walls and a ceiling and a floor, once it was all over. He needed a _bed._  

“Hey, hey,” the boy said, and Louis had been silent for too long, _damn_ , it had been a lot of travel, and it was getting into nighttime now--he was swallowing, he had to keep on being normal, for a bit, fuck it-- “I was joking, hey, sorry.”

“Yeah,” Louis laughed, and it sounded a little out of practice in his own ears. “Would love a room, though. Wake one up?" 

The boy grinned.  

“‘Course. Just you, then?”

Louis nodded. The boy moved behind the desk and flipped open the paper book. He had nice hands, Louis noticed, strong, big hands. He had a black leather bracelet braided around one wrist, very rustic. He had long hair that he tucked behind his ears, but not very well. He had a nametag, and it said _Harry._

“You’ve got the pick of them, actually,” said Harry. “Sometimes we get a few folks in for Christmas skiing but I think the snowstorm’s keeping most people away. Lucky you got here when you did, it should hit hard tomorrow. Going to be a white Christmas, yeah?”

“Lucky,” Louis echoed. Warming back up to being around people, he’d found that people liked it when you repeated what they said. Harry was looking at him a little too sharp, though. Lone travelers on holidays were usually objects of curiosity, but Harry probably had his own holiday plans to get to. Louis would be forgotten as easily as he’d slipped off the train. Hopefully.

Louis lowered his eyes and set the bag carefully down on the floor and went to fill in the paperwork. It was all by hand, Harry not even bothering to fire up the old computer. That was ok by Louis. The fewer records, the better. He signed in with a false street name but the right name-name. Always felt wrong, somehow, to discard it.

“Preference on floor, Louis Tomlinson?” Harry asked, pulling open a drawer of keys.

“First,” Louis said. Definitely.

“I’ll give you the view, looks right out on the forest. Normally it costs extra, but seeing as you’re our most special guest, I think you should have it,” Harry said, conspiratorially, almost in a whisper even though they were obviously the only two people around.

“That sounds perfect,” Louis said, with sincerity.

Harry gave Louis a key with a little flourish, heavy dark iron with a blue ribbon bow on it. It was all very twee, here, from the yellow light candleholders to the ribbons to the ornate china mug that Harry’s tea was in. He’d picked it up and taken a drink, eyes still not leaving Louis’ face.

Louis should turn away, shutter his face, pick up his bag. He bit the corner of his bottom lip, and pointed at the novel.

“Yours?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Harry said, face brightening. “Genius stuff, have you heard of this series? The magic system is so cool, only just started, but I’m really liking it.”

“I’m reading it too,” Louis said, risking opening his bag and producing the book, to prove it. Just in case Harry thought he was a liar, or trying to put something over on him. “It’s great.”

“Oh, sick,” Harry said, delighted. “You’re nearly through, no spoilers!”

Louis’ bookmark, the receipt from the scone he’d bought in the city, was at the back of the book. “I’ve got the sequel too,” he said, shyly. Proudly. It had been a real indulgence, buying that, and risky in case the inn had turned out to be more expensive than he’d bargained for, but Louis hadn’t known the next time he would be in a bookstore.

“What a coincidence,” Harry said with a wide smile. He had dimples when he smiled that big, and his eyes looked different. Louis liked them both ways.

“Hopefully your rooms have lamps, for reading,” Louis said. Stupid, but Harry kept smiling.

“You’ll barely need it,” Harry said. “It’s gonna be such a bright moon tonight, you could probably read by it.”

“Yeah, I know,” Louis said, shoving the book back in his bag, closing it with a snap. He backed away from the desk, away from Harry, turned his shoulder between them. Harry looked the tiniest bit disappointed. Maybe Louis was fooling himself, but, maybe not.

 

*

 

There was a bed, which was the important bit. The room was about as twee as the rest of the place, but good quality. Louis could appreciate the furniture that seemed heavy and solid and real, the weight of the curtains and the warm feel of the carpet. It was also unexpectedly _clean:_ no harsh chemicals, no itching, crawling sensation in the back of his eyeballs telling him that he was going to wake up to a throbbing headache after sleeping tomorrow morning. If he was lucky enough to have time to sleep. But there was no sound of traffic, no pounding of steps outside, no raised voices.

It was still early, despite the growing darkness, the short winter day compressing everything. It had been throwing off Louis’ sense of rhythm for a while: he had the itch to wake up outside, with the sun, catch every bit of it he could. He was lucky to have an inside to be in, he reminded himself, hearing it a little bit in his head like Harry’s voice. _Lucky, lucky, lucky_.

Louis unpacked his few shirts, his other jeans, the socks and underwear into the top drawer of the dresser next to the bed. They were blissfully clean from the laundromat in the city--he was really getting better at this, he’d prepared, this month. He’d only be there a night, but he was going to make the most of feeling like he had a little space of his own. He lined his books up on the top of the dresser. He had four of them, this time, and it was probably smart to get rid of the novel he’d shared with Harry once he finished it. Less weight was good, more room in a bag was good. Louis sighed. He’d make that decision later.

He took a shower. Against the inn’s remoteness and Louis’ low expectations, the shower had good strong water pressure and immediate hot water. Louis turned the water up to scalding and stood in it for a long, long time. He let himself use twice as much soap as usual, and then carefully wrapped the bar back up in its wrapper and put it on the counter to take with him, tomorrow. Feeling the heat spread from the crown of his head down, watching his skin prune, he let himself feel a hint of relief. He’d made it this far. _This far_ was always good. _This far_ was always worth a tiny celebration. Another day of _this far_ meant tomorrow was a possibility.

Louis rolled out his wrists and wondered what to do with the unexpected gift of the evening. There was a little crackle in all of his joints tonight. He felt weirdly good considering what was coming, like he’d been comforted by the quiet landscape and the lack of people since getting off the train. He had at least a few hours, and he hadn’t heard a soul since Harry, and it was Christmas eve, after all. He glanced at the tv, it was always a treat to have access to a tv, but his eyes were getting sensitive already, and that would only get worse--just thinking about screens and flickering displays made him feel a phantom headache. Maybe he could creep out of this room and spend a few hours near the fireplace he’d caught a glimpse of off the lobby. Maybe they had books.

Regardless of the unexpected peacefulness, when there was a knock at the door Louis felt himself fold back into a crouch. Damn, it was close to the surface. Louis pulled himself upright, took half a second to calculate the risk but--he opened it, and it was Harry, standing there with his fist raised again like he was going to knock again. Louis blinked at him, blinked water out of his eyes. A drop of water skated down his forehead from his hair, where it had gotten long in the last six months and plastered over the side of his face. He clutched the towel around his hips.

“Hi again,” Harry said. He’d lost the nametag, but he was still in the waffle shirt, and tight, fashionable dark jeans that Louis hadn’t noticed before but now envied with a strong and incalculable envy. 

“Hi,” Louis said, and his voice sounded a little hoarse. People didn’t just go around saying hi this much, really, did they? Most of his conversations were either beginnings or ends. _Hi. Excuse me. Do you have any. Please. All right. Thanks anyway. Bye._

“Sorry to be a bother,” said Harry, who wasn’t a bother, “But I was just about to do the cookies, which is a little bit ridiculous tonight, but you know, Gemma would kill me if I didn’t. The inn always has them. And I thought I should tell you, seeing as we’re the only people here tonight. Otherwise it’s just gonna be me down there in the lounge playing the Elvis Christmas album like, ten times in a row. You’d be welcome to come and like, you can just eat a cookie and leave, or we could play a board game if you were looking for company, or none of those things. I don’t know, I just thought I’d ask.”

Louis was relieved that Harry stopped to take a breath, so many words spilling out that it was hard for Louis to track. He fingered the edge of his towel.

“I know Blue Christmas,” Louis said. “There’s a whole album?”

“‘Santa Bring My Baby Back to Me?’” Harry tried, Louis shook his head.

“‘Here Comes Santa Claus’? Oh, wow, have we got work to do. _Is there a whole album_. We’ve got it on vinyl and there is, obviously, a record player down in the lounge. Come help me bake cookies, then, Louis Tomlinson!”

Harry looked excited and friendly and normal _._ Harry read fantasy novels and had a couple of rings on his left hand and a tattoo peeking out along the wrist of one hand. Harry wanted to bake cookies.

“Ok,” Louis said. His stomach chose that moment to rumble, embarrassingly loud. Harry’s eyes flickered down, and Louis was suddenly acutely conscious that he was bare-chested in a towel. He’d always been small but lately he was thin too, whip-thin and a little jagged. He’d managed a shave with the temporary razor in the bathroom, at least. Harry licked his bottom lip, stepped back a little into the hall. 

“Meet me in the kitchen off the lounge. Just follow the sounds of holiday crooning,” Harry said, ducking his chin in a charming nod.

Louis watched him walk down the hall in those jeans. He’d give the excuse that he was _only human,_ but, you know.

 

*

 

“Do you always run inns by yourself on Christmas?”

Louis was perched on a bright red stool in the kitchen, watching more than helping. He’d pulled on his nicest shirt, the warm flannel with a blue pattern that didn’t have any holes. Harry was stirring up a batch of chocolate chip cookies, which were apparently made fresh every night for the guests. Louis was the only guest, but Harry was making a full batch anyway. Tradition, he said. He’d also handed Louis a warm bowl of baked ziti when Louis had walked into the kitchen, tentatively and slowly. _Here, help me with these leftovers,_ he’d said. Louis had inhaled it, and hoped that Harry hadn’t really noticed. He felt like a new person, with that ziti in him.

“Nah,” Harry said, eyeballing butter, and then shrugging and adding a little more. “We didn’t expect anybody, no reservations, but somebody had to stay just in case. Lo and behold, I got a cute Christmas elf,” he twinkled at Louis, who shifted on his stool and felt a warm flush creep up the back of his neck. They were fully in the _middle_ of a conversation now, which was very unfamiliar.  

“There are usually a bunch of us. Niall, Zayn, Liam, and I, we’re the ones who get to rotate desk duty and cleaning, but everybody’s out tonight and I drew the short straw.”

He snorted in a way that suggested there was some good-natured ribbing about it. Louis breathed in a long drag of the air in the kitchen. Food smells were usually a gamble on this kind of night, but like everything else in the inn, this kitchen smelled nice, too. Everything was built to last. There was a massive industrial-size stove, and long wooden cabinets. The flour and sugar were stored in matching ceramic jars, the measuring spoons Harry was using were copper. Above the kitchen island, a long row of pans and griddles promised that this was a kitchen that could feed a party.  

He kept getting a sense about the inn, that it was bigger than it even looked, rooms spilling out past where you thought the corners were, closets and cubbies and low, secret storage spaces. Louis had always liked spaces like this. Once, in New York City, before he’d figured out how to manage the monster better--once, he’d taken refuge in an brickworks factory building that had been half-gutted before even the demolition of it had been abandoned. It had been a strange, twisted space of temporary walls and old partitions, and Louis had trapped himself inside of it and explored for a long time. It was still rank and urban, but sheltered. He’d cut himself on something nasty, though, in a way that took weeks to heal.

The inn was better because it was natural materials and the forest felt close, pricking on the edge of Louis’ perception no matter where they were. Louis couldn’t see through the dark of the kitchen windows but he could hear the wind, whispering for him. He came here for space. He came here to be alone, and the forest knew it. There was a lot of space, Louis felt sure. 

“Come on,” Harry said, tapping Louis’ foot. Louis twitched, surprised. Harry had moved close into his space and Louis caught the tenor of him on his tongue. He smelled rich and warm and earthy. It shivered up the back of Louis’ brainstem, made his mouth feel a little watery. He jolted back on the stool, and Harry stepped back, too, looking a little wary.

“Sorry,” Louis said. Harry smiled at him, closed-mouth and dipping his head. His eyes looked thoughtful.

“You’re ok,” he said, and he brushed Louis’ shoulder with the tips of his fingers as he went by, taking the kitchen timer with him. The kitchen timer was absurd, in the shape of a cookie itself, with a lone plastic chocolate chip ticking towards a deadline. Louis felt reassurance spreading from the edge of his shoulder where Harry had brushed him, which was nonsense. He shook it off, followed Harry back out to the lounge. It wasn’t time for all that, not yet. For now, he could pretend to have a little Christmas.

 

*

 

The Elvis Christmas album was all that Harry had promised. Louis found himself on the plush carpet of the lounge with a thick pillow to his back and slippers on his feet. Harry had produced them from a bin next to the fireplace.

“We’re a rustic inn,” Harry said, feigning shock, “Obviously we have _emergency slippers.”_

“Obviously,” Louis said, giggling. Louis had never heard a real record player before. It had strange scratches and bubbles in the sound but it also sounded pure in a way that Louis loved, like they’d stepped back through time. The lounge was lit mostly by the fire and a few ineffective lamps, and Louis felt soothed. Elvis’ voice rolled about their heads, and the fire added its own atmospheric crackles.   

“You’re cheating,” Harry said, looking at Louis over a hand of cards. They were playing an old 1970s game that had also been in the bin, making words out of blocks and using cards to pull topics that their sentences had to cover. Louis was twenty points ahead. He risked a smirk at Harry. Harry looked pleased.

“I like words,” he said.

“You’re quiet for someone who likes words,” Harry pointed out, as if this were more proof of cheating. Louis played another good phrase, got another five points, and Harry groaned.

“I like _written down_ words,” Louis said. “I like reading.”

“What else should I read?” Harry said, “You obviously have good taste.” He played a mediocre phrase that only earned him one point, and opened up a move for Louis to get ten. Harry jokingly fell down in despair, ending up close to Louis on the floor. He still smelled nice. Louis wondered when the last time was that he’d been this physically close to an attractive boy. He let that line of thought die a sad little death.

“Um,” Louis thought back through his favorites, and picked a couple to tell Harry about. One was a real-life adventure story about a kid who’d taken a boat through a rainforest jungle alone that he’d read while hiding in a Florida shopping mall. That had been a much warmer Christmas, but rank with humidity and the smothering fear of losing control in the middle of suburban America. Louis was a lot better at getting further away from people, now. Another one was another fantasy novel about time travel and robots--Louis loved robots; they’d played a lot of scifi tv in one of the homes he’d been in as a late teenager, and robots had featured heavily. Harry noted them all down on his phone.

“Cookies!” Harry said, after four Elvis songs had finished and the timer dinged. Louis made a move to get up, and Harry pushed him gently back down.

Louis felt his eyebrows shoot up, and smoothed them down, rearranging on the pillow. Harry was casual about physical touch in a way that felt like a shock to Louis’ whole system. Louis had learned to hold his body careful in space. Harry held his body in space like someone who’d never had to worry that one wrong step would damage everybody around him.

“Don’t cheat while I’m gone,” he said sternly. Louis laughed again. What a weird sound. He felt warm where Harry had touched him.

“Are you, are your people going to be back for Christmas?” Louis asked, hesitatingly over a third fresh cookie. They were irresistible, and Harry looked extremely gratified at the way Louis had gone at them. The soft sugar dissolved on his tongue and felt a little bit like a drug. Louis rarely got sugar, and his body was craving everything tonight. He felt a little bit like he’d fallen through a trapdoor into the unusual comfort of everything, held in the deep warm hold of this inn, like the shower and the company was a seductive, Christmassy drug.

“Yeah they better be,” Harry said darkly, “Or what was all this for?” he waved a cookie around the room, encompassing the tree in the corner and the lights and the various plush snowmen with a scatter of crumbs.

“You did these decorations?”

“Yeah, I really did,” Harry said proudly. Louis looked around at the lounge again. It was all still like a movie set, big boughs of pine along the fireplace and golden Christmas ornaments woven with red ribbon. The lights were entwined up to the highest corners, and hidden ornaments materialized as soon as you looked closer. There were reindeer and fake birds and lots, and lots of pinecones. Pinecones as big as Louis’ head, in places. Louis usually hated holiday decorations. Louis hated _holidays._

“I love it,” he decided.

“So what about you?” Harry asked, looking a little sly, “You here for vacation? To check out the preserve? Going hiking?”

“Going hiking,” Louis repeated. Something like that. That was a nice thought, bundled up in a parka and maybe some mittens, taking a camera out and looking for birds. Louis thought suddenly that maybe he had owned a parka once, bright blue. Tiny Louis, in a tiny parka. That was a new one. He couldn’t ever remember though, not really.

“That’s cool, coming out here alone and getting outdoors for the holidays,” Harry said. “You’re like a tough outdoorsman, huh.”

Louis flushed, red splashed over his face. Harry was leaning into him on the floor, fingers stained with chocolate, smelling of pine and flour. Louis could feel the sensory pull of everything getting stronger and that was supposed to be a warning sign, it was, but it rather made him want to lean back in.

Harry had a tone like someone who was asking something, pressing a little bit into their conversation, testing the waters. Louis knew that he was making too much eye contact, that the way he’d looked at Harry’s mouth and Harry’s arms hadn’t been as subtle as it should’ve been, but Harry didn’t seem uncomfortable about it. Harry had been looking back, Louis was pretty sure. Louis wasn’t totally oblivious--Harry seemed friendlier than your typical backwoods farm boy, seemed more like the boys that Louis expected to see in the neighborhoods to the left of downtown, hard and soft at the same time, dangerous. Harry’s tone was familiar because it had used to be Louis’ tone, a few years ago, back when he’d been bold and brave and he’d thought that he could suppress the monster forever, just a feverish sickness every month but not something that would bring him all the way out here, trying to get away from everything and everyone. He knew better, now. He was always going to be the monster.

“I should go to bed,” Louis said, abruptly. He grabbed a napkin off the plate Harry had brought out, pulled it roughly across his fingers. He should--he felt raspy and a little shaky--he was glad he’d had food--he should leave. This, the room, the fire, Harry, this wasn’t a good place to stay. Not with the person that he was. Or more, the person that he wasn’t.

“Ok,” Harry said. He sounded disappointed, and there was something else in the back of his eyes, something that sent a shiver down Louis’ spine that he didn’t understand. He felt a little nervous, suddenly, and not in the way he was used to. Harry looked long and tall and strong, bracing himself on his forearms against his knees. Harry looked that way, but he was fragile, Louis reminded himself. So, so much more fragile than Harry knew.

“Hey Lou,” Harry said as Louis turned to go, put the emergency slippers neatly back in the bin and stacked carefully on top of the blankets there. Louis made a humming noise, small.

“Maybe we could go on a hike tomorrow, in the woods. I know all the hikes.”

If Louis had been the person he'd used to be, he might have been bold, walked back, pushed his fingers through the inch of space where he had felt Harry's heat and intertwined one of them with Harry's. Even if Harry was straight--he didn't think, but even if--Harry seemed kind, seemed like the risk would be safe. The Louis of a few years ago would've tried.

“Maybe we could go on a hike,” Louis echoed, instead. They wouldn't.

 

*

 

Louis had never been a person at all. It had always been a big trick, a big con, a great reversal: he’d gotten thrown out of the family he couldn’t remember because of it, probably. Years of living in a human body had only been a ruse, getting born in it because the parasitical horror of him went so very deep, it swapped him out before he even had the chance to be a baby. It was such a successful trick that he’d believed it himself, for most of his life.

Louis had felt the first sick lurch of it as he stepped from the bed towards the closet, holding a sweater in clenched hands. He doubled over in a thick shock of pain, lancing from his stomach to the soles of his feet. He caught the room in the corners of his eyes as he squeezed them shut and then tried to keep them open, unsure what would help--his books, his clothes, his bag, the meager traces of everything that he tried to remind himself he could be, in the times before and after this. He was a _person._  

Louis wasn’t a person. He was a freak show, a carnival ride, a thing that went bump in the night. He felt a gnawing crack in his jaw and his teeth, longer, sharper. His bones were aching, his muscles were stretching. He was _here,_ the real Louis. He had to go.

Louis dropped the sweater and hoped he hadn’t ripped it, didn’t look at his hands, which might well be claws instead. He went for the door, side-pulling handle easy to get with either hands or claws (which? He didn’t look), down the hallway towards the front desk. _Be gone, be gone,_ he didn’t smell or hear Harry, who was hopefully gone, safe in a room somewhere with cookies. Louis froze him there in his mind, a little memory he couldn’t have.  

The inn. The front door. It was heavy and wooden and strong. Everything about this place was strong. Louis wondered if he could get it open, suddenly, losing his grip on what it meant to be _indoors_ and _outdoors,_ a whirl of vertigo. But the front door was already open, unlocked, hanging a few inches and letting cold wind sweep in.

 _Lucky._ Louis’ mind was starting to curl in on itself, details from now and the day pressed together and jumbled. It always felt like somebody had started shaking his brain, and he wondered (when he could wonder) whether the neurons themselves had to rearrange, or whether the monster was always there taking up half of the matter in his skull, the motor commands and the instincts and the new fresh DNA of it just waiting to go. Or did it have to birth itself again, every time in his head, a wave of fresh cerebellum and deformed cortex? The cookie timer was going off. Take the new brain out of the oven.

Louis was outside, wind whipping around his brand-new head with ears that were feeling the wrong shape. He was still something that looked like a human, that could fool people. Not for long. He walked into the grass, cold and wet on his bare feet. In a minute, it wouldn’t matter.

He didn’t look at the moon. That wouldn’t matter, either; the moon was always looking at him. He could still see it with the dog’s eye forever in the back of his head. It was full and luminous and pure, shining white over all of them. It made the land a ferocious new universe, untouched and untainted and completely different from the day. It was a fucking lie, and Louis knew it, a lie about wildness and instinct and being free. He knew it and he still followed it, still felt the prickling of tears and the salt in his nose and the pounding of his heart. He hated everything about himself and _he also loved this,_ and that made him a monster, more than anything else.

 

*

 

Louis was running more than thinking. It had happened for real at the perimeter of the forest, like there was a gate that snapped open and Louis had jumped through without thinking, transformation, one-way ticket to monsterville, population one. He felt stronger than usual, better than usual, the sick of the solitary twisting change already fading. 

The wolf was beautiful. Louis wasn’t sure, had never been able to see himself, but he thought he had sable fur. The glimpses he caught were sometimes grey-silver, sometimes dark, but his legs looked sable, and the fur he found in the morning did. He was sharp and angular as a human and he felt sharp and angular as a wolf, small and light and cutting. He was strong, and fast, but something hooked in his belly that told him others might be stronger, faster. So he was a smart wolf, like he was a smart human.

The forest was even more beautiful. Louis had mostly been a wolf in the city, which was a trauma that made him flinch and whimper just to remember. He’d been tracking further and further out since then. Nothing had ever felt like this forest: the sheer size of it, his wolf’s instincts telling him that it was bigger than he even needed. You could run for nights here, it whispered, nights and nights. Never reach the end. You could find food. There was water. You could fade into it. Run forever in the moonlight.

He was still Louis (and that was the worst of it, wasn’t it? That he loved this and that he was still Louis, for a while he could pretend that it came upon him, it had felt like possession at first, but he knew now that _it was him and that he loved it),_ so he thought also, the forest was beautiful. The pines that had looked like an indistinguishable mass of black to human eyes were many, many colors of scent, many species and many communities of creatures in them. And nowhere did Louis smell the acid bite of innocent humans. He could’ve cried with relief, if wolves cried, but they didn’t.

The exuberant overwhelm of it was starting to ease, the frantic muscle spasms that sent Louis running-- _galloping_ \--as far as he could, as fast as he could, as deep into the forest as he could. Like it was his oxygen, his lifeblood, immersing himself in the forest. Now he was panting and exhausted and his mind was clearing. And he was still Louis, so when he came to a hollow in the forest that looked clear and pleasant in the strong moonlight and that smelled safe, he sat down and huffed a long, _thank god,_ sigh into the night air. Alive. Fully alive, still alive. Alone, but alive.

Not alone.

Louis whipped his head up. The air had been giving him the message before anything else, the fur on the back of his legs standing up, and his dumbass mind was the last to catch up. Louis felt, for a second, a little bit annoyed (maybe, maybe that was still human, then, he’d always held onto that, he liked to make people laugh). Louis wasn’t so good at this, yet, hadn’t been out in the wilderness before, but the long-laid tracks of instinct in his (new?) brain were still good at it. _You’re not. Not alone._

Louis was on his feet, but silent, backing into the brush. He flicked his gaze through the trees, couldn’t see or sense anything. He should be able to sense it, he should know. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, not tonight. _Not tonight._ He poised for flight, but he also felt the gathering instinct in his lean muscles, the coiling snap of his strong jaw, the points of his (new) teeth. _Survive._

So when Harry stepped out of the trees and into the hollow, it didn’t make any sense. It was an illusion. It was a fantasy. Harry couldn’t be here, deep in the woods on the night when civilization faded and all that was left was the pant and the run and the secret, horrible joy of the wild. Harry belonged back at the inn with his cookies and novels and all his things that were so desperately, terribly tender and breakable. There was a gate that never should have let Harry through, with his soft human skin and his kind, trusting human eyes.

Harry was walking towards him. Harry shouldn’t be able to even see him. Louis was far back in the brush, and he knew he was well-hidden, he had a good instinct about it. Louis felt the fur along his shoulders and neck pulling into a tight, defensive posture. That didn’t make any _fucking sense_ either, Louis was still Louis enough to feel, strangely and inappropriately, annoyed about it. Louis shouldn’t be defensive. Louis was the monster.

Harry was in the hollow and close enough that Louis could see the strong planes of his face. Harry’s shoulders were wide, facing Louis straight-on, something that the wolf knew was a challenge. Harry was still stepping through the brush, still coming. Louis made a half-whine half-growl that he knew Harry couldn’t interpret, but he had to try. _Stay, stay away. I’m the danger._

Harry _smiled._

“You’re really not,” he said. The human part of Louis gasped, and it pulled in the air that swirled around Harry, cascaded over the skin that was bare under the moonlight, but not even shivering.

Harry smelled--Harry _smelled like something,_ he had a _scent_ , it hadn’t been obvious before but it was now, now that he was letting Louis catch it, now that he wasn’t holding it back, and it was a rushing smatter of images, more feeling and instinct than anything Louis could actually parse. It was a clear, vivid, unassailable scent, it was the brightness of Harry. And it was also more than Harry, strength and stability, collectivity and togetherness. Louis was catching the flash of others, mingled scents and the promise and resolve of _them,_ Harry was part of a pack, a pack was part of Harry (packs were a thing that existed!). Louis felt, with a heartbreak so real he wondered whether it had cut a line clear through him--alone.

Something rattled in the very basement of Louis’ mind, dormant and ignored but never quite forgotten. Louis. Tomlinson. _Son of._ He had been somebody’s son, once. That kind of thing didn’t just disappear, even when you couldn’t remember it. They’d had _history_. It was like a key had turned in a lock over his memories, the forest hissing in his ears. The human part of his brain, such as it was, couldn’t follow, but he could still hear it. It was a transgression to come here, a transgression he hadn’t even heard, because he’d never been listening for it.

Harry wasn’t like Louis, who was so alone. Louis was frozen, paralyzed. The wolf in Louis wasn’t in doubt at all. The wolf in Louis was down on the floor, pressing into the dirt and the leaves and scared, even though Harry should be the one who was scared.

Harry wasn’t acting scared, which was very unusual. A human with any sense would be scared.

Harry wasn’t acting _human._

“I can’t believe,” Harry said, stepping forward, closing the gap between them, his steps not making a sound, a fluid motion over his body, smoother than Louis ever felt when he did it, practiced, calm--and he thought, _so that’s what it looks like_ \--and Harry was shaking his head, and dropping to all fours, rippling into fur, and before he lost the ability of it, he finished his sentence-- “I can’t believe you thought you were _the only one.”_

 

*

 

Louis’ last thought was that he couldn’t believe his last thought was-- _he’s going to kill me, and he’s so beautiful._

He’d never seen another wolf--he’d never known that there were other wolves to see--and now there were, and he was going to kill Louis, and Louis was going to let him, because Louis had broken all of the rules that there were, and it didn’t matter that he didn’t know them, the wolf knew that this was pack and this was territory and this was protection, and that he was a monster, you know, the lone wolf. Funny to learn that you were an _entirely new monster than the one you thought_ , right before you died. It was, to be fair, a very Louis way to go. Louis wished he could have made that joke to someone.  

Harry’s wolf was too strong for him to fight, even if he’d wanted to, and Louis didn’t want to. He was so, so tired of fighting. He was a violation, a mistake, a monster in two worlds. Harry was coming towards him slowly, outlined in the moonlight, made of stars and pine. Harry _belonged_ here, Louis felt it with every pull of the air between them. Louis had followed the magic to the place that he hadn’t even known he’d always dreamed of, but Harry lived here.

Louis felt the dirt grinding into his fur as he hunched impossibly down, submissive because that was what was right, here, even though he’d only just been born into this new world where there were _others._ At least he was going to die without the crushing weight of the city around him. He knew that he was wrong and he didn’t deserve it and he didn’t belong here but he still loved this forest, unapologetic in the depths of his wolf (human) heart. He’d die with that, at least.

In a leap, Harry was there, Harry’s wolf was a solid weight of muscle and fur and destruction on him. Louis squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the snap of his own neck.

Death felt weirdly like a cuddle. Louis’ heart was still beating in his ears. The world was black and heavy and it smelled like Harry in the kitchen, offering him cookies. Louis didn’t know what to make of any of it. Harry was there on top of him, pinning him into the ground, and Harry was... _licking him._

 _Home._ It breathed through Louis’ mind, but it wasn’t Louis’ mind. Louis had an image, now, chasing the breath--the others, and the way that Harry felt about them, the bursting pride and certainty and loyalty of family--the green-black arms of the forest around them all. It was wolfish and humanish and boyish. And Harry was grooming him, the wolf tugs around his ears, the loose skin of his ruff, the soothing snap of a playful, playful bite. _Welcome to our home._

Louis realized that they were--they were talking? They could talk? Louis was learning a lot, in a very short amount of time. Louis was shaking in the dirt, shaking into Harry, shaking against the newness of everything and also the ferocious comfort flooding through his body, just to be here, snug and protected underneath Harry. He had no idea when the fear and the threat had turned into protection.  

 _Lots of time,_ Harry said, in his mind, all tinged in a laugh that sounded like Harry. Louis could see the edge of his eye, glinting off the moon, full of things to say. _All night._

Louis lifted his head, lifted it up from the ground and the fear. Harry’s wolf held them still for a moment but, satisfied that Louis wasn’t going anywhere, he gave him enough space to do it. Louis pulled in the air, pulled in the forest that was sheltering both of them, _including him_. He reached out, bold.

 

 _Hi._  

 


End file.
